I just read this inspiring story from an enewsletter I get:

The Appalachian Trail is 2175 miles long and runs from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mt. Katahdin in Maine. The trail was finished in 1937 and in 1948 Earl Shaffer of York Pennsylvania completed the first documented thru-hike. Since then over 50,000 people have set out to hike the entire trail. About eight thousand have been successful. Considering the nature of the journey, it's surprising that any of those intrepid souls made it. Among the difficulties that hikers face are brutally harsh weather, intense physical challenges that include prolonged periods of solitude, steep drop-offs with poor footing, and miles of ridgebacks. In 2008, about 1600 hikers set out to hike the entire trail. Of those, 460 completed it. Among them was a blind 39 year old man named Trevor Thomas.

Thomas intended to hike the trail with a companion, a man who was an experienced hiker who had agreed to meet him at Springer Mountain. He waited for several hours at the mountain's parking lot with his sister Elizabeth who had driven him from his North Carolina home. It finally became apparent to them both that his friend was not going to show up. Although Elizabeth assumed that this would put an end to the hike, Thomas was of a different mind. Much to his sister's surprise, he began asking passing hikers if he could follow them up the trail. The first 23 who came by declined his request. The 24th, a 25 year old graduate student from Connecticut named Kevin Rondeau, responded, "Why the hell not?"

Rondeau helped to guide Thomas by walking a few steps ahead of him and tapping rocks and trees so that Thomas would be alerted to their presence and avoid them. He also helped him get through the especially difficult places on the trail. After a week of hiking, Rondeau needed to pick up his pace in order to make it back on time for the Fall semester and left Thomas with a another group of hikers who had agreed to help out. After a few days, this group too felt the need to accelerate their pace and "co-incidentally" at the time, another group of hikers showed up and offered to take over. This pattern continued throughout the hike. Hikers would accompany Thomas until another individual or group came by and took over.

Thomas carried a GPS that relayed his location back to his parents back home who were not at all pleased at their son's decision to hike the trail. His mother, Judith Thomas thought that her son wouldn't make it more than two days. "We were amazed", she said. "Every day he just kept moving forward." But Thomas's progress was not without its ordeals. He chipped a bone in his hip and gashed his wrist in a fall in Massachusetts and he cracked two ribs on Saddleback Mountain in Maine causing what he describes as "the most intense pain, ever!"

On October 7, six months after setting out on the trail, Thomas arrived at the foot of Mt. Katahdin. He made his ascent the next day, the last day of the hike. The climb would prove to be the most difficult and challenging aspect of the journey. About halfway to the top, Thomas reached a wall of rocks that he could not pass. He was wet and freezing from the wind, rain and cold that had numbed his fingers making it almost impossible for him to grasp the granite to climb further up. After continuously trying unsuccessfully to find a way up the section, in frustration Thomas jammed his hiking pole into a crevice and gained enough leverage to reach a perch and throw his leg over it. Exhausted, but not defeated, he raised himself up and slowly climbed over the rocks until the ground finally leveled out. He made it to the summit to the sound of cheers coming from the hikers who had preceeded him and were waiting for him. They grabbed him and shouted with joy at his arrival.

In the five months since Thomas completed his hike he's been asked numerous times why a blind man would hike the mountains when he is unable to appreciate the beautiful scenery. "I appreciated the summits in my own way", he said. "I heard the snow crushed underfoot, felt the wind against my skin, felt the sun on my face, and enjoyed the sheer silence of it all. I put my life in the hands of complete strangers over and over again. And whenever it seemed the darkest, whenever it seemed the magic had run out, someone would be there."

Through Trevor Thomas's extraordinary efforts and commitment, he not only restored trust in himself, but he experienced a depth of trust and faith in others that he had never previous known . His journey demanded far more of him physically, spiritually, and emotionally than he ever expected it would, far more perhaps than he might have initially believed he had in him. And it rewarded him with infinitely more than he could have imagined he would gain from his efforts.

There have been many times in my own life when I have thought or said, " It's a good thing that I didn't know how hard this was going to be, because if I did, I never would have done it." The ego, that part of us that we often confuse with our true self, is usually the one that makes those choices and makes them on the basis of what we believe ourselves to be capable of. Because our ego-self has a limited and distorted idea of who we are, we often make choices that are based upon an underestimation of what is truly possible for us and misjudge our true potential. Sometimes however, life provides circumstances that thrust us into situations that challenge us to dig down into the reserves of our hearts, minds, bodies and souls and in so doing to discover that there is much more there than we had realized.

In Thomas's case, his ordeals not only opened up a deep well of inner strength within himself, but they affirmed what his heart already knew about the web of interconnectedness that holds us all. His life was permanently transformed as a result of his experiences, as were the lives of those who helped him complete what can perhaps best be described as a holy pilgrimage. Their gift to him was their support and his gift in return was the opportunity to contribute to another being in a way that left them all more awake to what it means to be truly human.

We don't need to hike the Appalachian trail in order to experience life's greatest blessings. The opportunities are there every day of our lives. The transcendent is always present in the ordinary. As Marcel Proust reminds us, "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but in seeing with new eyes."

www.bloomwork.com

I've been reflecting the past few days on some of life's sweetest, yet simplest and perhaps most unencumbered moments: those when I've been served or when I have served someone else. Back in the eighties I had the good fortune to do marketing for very high-end hotels, at which time I was exposed to the art of giving good service during my many visits to our clients. I distinctly remember one such occasion. I was with my boss at a top-notch little gem of a hotel in London, and he'd asked for cigarettes. Shortly thereafter, one of the staff was proffering an open pack of cigarettes--with one invitingly peeking out of the pack--on a silver tray in one hand, lighter at the ready in the other. He did so seamlessly and elegantly. I remember being quite taken by how attentive, efficient and artful this interchange had been. Since then, I've always appreciated such beautiful acts of service.

I had an even more delightful experience of this in a much more mundane circumstance a few years ago. I'd asked one of the folks at the fish counter at Whole Foods to cut me a smaller piece of salmon. This man responded to my request with complete pleasure--like it would utterly be his delight to provide me with what I wanted---and his every move was a joy for me to watch. When he handed me my piece of fish, I felt that someone had just prepared a precious gift just for me--it went straight into my heart and gave me great joy. In fact, it elicited a devotional and somewhat erotic quality in me as well. (I did leave the fish guy alone, however!)

I've been in a variety of service-related jobs over the years, and I've always known how good it feels to provide top-of-the-line service to people--to be that attentive and to delight in what I am offering. I"ve sometimes (certainly not always!) found getting someone something as simple as a cup of tea extremely pleasurable. More recently, I've found myself quite touched by very simple acts we can do for each other. For example, I had dinner with a male friend a few months ago and he graciously poured my water from the pitcher that was sititng on our table. That one opened my heart and stuck with me for a long time.

The reason I write this on this day is I see all the hype about the grand gestures or the big presents and all the other such stuff related to Valentine's Day. What if we simply and attentively served each other--whether as lovers, friends, family members, neighbors--in the little ways every day?

 (add an "s" to "sort"!)

I may say something controversial or kill some sacred cows here (the idea that we can manifest all of our dreams, for example). Oh well! Somehow this point finally hit me the other day when I was reading an alumni magazine from my undergrad school. A few issues earlier, an alumna had written an article about the issue of balancing having kids and working, drawing from the experiences of other female alums. I later read a letter to the editor regarding this article written by a woman who was more or less having a tantrum of why couldn't she have kids and be out having what she seemed to view to be a more fulfilling career outside the home. Why did her husband get to have that, but she didn't and why couldn't she have both? I don't intend to get into whether or not it is fair for the woman to have to be the one at home--that's not really my point. I am also not antifeminist, saying that women are only good for cooking and childrearing (I will say, however controversial it may be, that babies and small children seem to be biologically designed to need their mothers desperately the first few years and they need the influence of their fathers later down the line for different developmental reasons). I think what got me here was some sort of sense of entitlement--that she should be able to have everything and have it all work to her liking. While I can appreciate that feeling (I've had it regarding other things), I somehow got from this that when we make certain life choices and commit to following through with them, we necessarily close off some others. I don't mean we are stuck in some rigid unichoice, but there is something about really choosing something and recognizing that other things may very well have to drop away as a result. (To me, being a parent has always looked like one of the ultimate sacrifices--I have no kids, partly because of this.) I have seen myself sometimes waver and not commit to particular lines of action because I don't want to have to give up xyz. Unlike this woman, I err on the side of not stepping into things--so I can seemingly avoid death, but not engage and play in the world of the living at the same time.

I've been in my midlife crisis full tilt for the last few years and these issues have been looming largely. I've become very aware that there isn't an infinite amount of time left and what I choose to do may send me down a path that may open up particular things but completely close others. This wasn't as apparent to me when I was younger and the world was my oyster.

Fortunately, I am getting practice with making and committing to small choices, in this case in my improvisational playback theater class I am taking at Naropa. More on that another time, but I will say that we are encouraged in every activity we do in class to make a conscious choice about what we are doing (Will we make a sound, use words, move a certain way, stay still?) and follow it to its end 100%, all the while staying in relationship with the audience and maintaining the energy of the choice (rather than collapsing). So if it's a hit, great, and if we just made a fool of ourselves, we commit to it all the way! The worst thing in this practice is to waver about what you are going to do or to do something half-heartedly. Forget wishing you had done something else. Also, once you move a certain way in response to something someone else gives you, you have some commitment to continuing to follow that path--you can't suddenly go back and do something else.  And if you make a mistake--so what, you just work with where you are and keep moving.

I must admit that I find the class to be a challenge--I want to figure things out ahead of time so I will look brilliant and sometimes I go completely blank. I sweat a lot and wonder if I am boring! What is amazing is to see what happens when I stick with whatever choice I've made and then relate/respond to the next prompt coming my way. It doesn't always (rarely) end up where I thought I might like it to go, but it is amazing practice for choosing and dying in each moment.

Early Sunday morning, September 17, 2006, His Holiness the Dalai Lama made a first-time, historic visit to Shambhala Mountain Center to bless The Great Stupa of Dharmakaya That Liberates upon Seeing , a stunning 108-foot monument that expresses the aspiration for peace, harmony and equanimity for all beings. Aside from being exquisite to look at, this building is as close to impermanent as we'll know--it's been built to last one thousand years!

The event at The Great Stupa was phenomenal in many ways, but I was most struck by the actual blessing process. I am very sensitive to energy, but I had no preconception as to whether I would feel anything or not. We couldn't see anything, as HH was inside the Stupa doing his thing. There was an emcee, however, who periodically announced something, not unlike those sports commentators who cover golf tournaments. For example, he would say something like, "And now His Holiness is blessing the Kalachakra mandala on the ceiling." And, like at a golf game, the crowd outside was silent all along. What I started to feel was a very strong empowerment of the Stupa. It felt that even though it had been consecrated before and even though it already holds many powerful relics (including Trungpa Rinpoche's remains), His Holiness had something energetic, like a special key from his lineage and from his function as the Dalai Lama, that finally turned the Stupa on all the way. In fact, turn on is not far from what I felt. I got the sense that the Divine Masculine or Father Sky had somehow come into union with the Stupa ,or Mother Earth in the form of the Stupa, and She became completely ecstatic and alive! This was 100% palpable to me. The talks given later by HH, as well as Queen Noor and Rabbi Kula (he was awesome--had people in tears) were also quite moving, but nothing could touch the blessing ceremony in my opinion, not even the Dalai Lama's and Queen Noor's dramatic approach and departure by helicopter over The Great Stupa. We were also blessed by the fact that while it has snowed and there had been unbelievably strong winds the day before, the sky was clear and still and it was only a bit nippy for the event. Okay, that's my long postcard from Shambhala Mountain Center!

I had access to information about various aspects of Eastern spirituality and psychology at a young age, but stuck most of that off to the side until I hit age 29. Rolling back the calendar a few years, in the late '80s I got the notion to go get an MBA, and I had the great fortune to do so at Stanford. After I got my degree, I did the typical post-MBA stint in management consulting.

Having grown up fairly green and liberal, I hadn't agreed with a number of principles I had learned at business school, like considering pollution as an "externality," and therefore not part of our economic analysis. After a few years of putting in my time in consulting (and having occasional flashes/fantasies of working at a retreat center), I woke up one morning and realized that I had to quit, even though I had no Plan B in mind. I imagined I'd just get another corporate job, but was I wrong! I ended up embarking on a decade-plus-long odyssey, during which time I got deeply involved in natural health, personal growth, Eastern spirituality (finally read books I had been given as a teenager, such as Autobiography of a Yogi and Meetings with Remarkable Men), sustainability, etc. For many years I was completely disgusted by the business world and capitalism altogether.

However, in the last few years I've been jazzed by seeing what some businesses and other groups of people have been able to accomplish in terms of solving intractable social and environmental problems. I realized I didn't need to throw business away altogether. It just needed to be contextualized in a broader framework.

Since I exited Corporate America, I've worked for a number of businesses and organizations that aim to improve the lives of people and the planet. I currently work part-time in marketing for Shambhala Mountain Center, a Buddhist meditation and yoga retreat center. Shambhala Mountain Center's mission is to awaken the world's wisdom and compassion by providing the ancient tools of the wisdom traditions to address the demands of 21st-century living. I also freelance, offering editing, writing and marketing consulting services to clients, particularly those working in the areas of natural health, personal growth, spiritual development and environmental sustainability.

I’ve also been training in working with groups. Check out Matrixworks, an amazing model for working with groups as living systems. I’ve been able to apply my empathic/intuitive nature to feeling, deepening and making more conscious the group field. I am naturally very attuned to energy, dynamics, shadow material and people’s gifts—this is a great place to apply it! I also want to bring theater and improv into the equation so that play, spontaneity and presence are part of the process. This weekend I will be taking Fleet Maull's and Judith Ansara Gass’s workshop in transforming groups through the Peacemaker Institute here in Boulder. Looking forward to learning more tools and connecting with others who are drawn to this sort of work.